August 2017 This is Jean Well's 30th book and as well as being an author, she owns the Stitchin' Post in Sisters, Oregon, which she opened in 1975 and now runs with her daughter Valeri. Over the years she's won numerous awards and became the 40th inductee into the Quilters Hall of Fame ... Read morein 2012. One of the great joys of her teaching workshops and through collaborating with other artists, she has liberated herself from the ruler and now counts her small digital camera as her best friend. With this she has taken hundreds of photos that provide her with design and colour inspiration. The academic side of Jean's approach comes across loud and clear in the way the book is laid out. Each chapter comes with assignments and she encourages her readers and students to try one out several times. There's a whole chapter on piecing techniques with six assigments including Rulerless Cutting and Piecing and Straightline inserts, each full explained and illustrated. In essence though, this book is in two parts: Design and Tools and Techniques makes the design part easier but she encourages her readers to switch between the two. Jean's great gift is that she is foremostly an artist who works primarily in cloth and stitches. Many of her techniques would easily be suitable for students of other creative disciplines. The quality of her work is magnificent and it's really interesting how she transposes shapes, pattern, colour and scale from her photographs onto her quilts, showing her workings-out along the way. You'll refer to this book again and again.
Popular Patchwork
Creative quilting brought to you by one of the best quilt designers. This book gives you exercises to follow to design your own quilts by thinking outside the block. Taking quilting in a new direction, this book frees up your creativity. Find plenty of inspiration, guidance and ideas for the adventurous quilter. Full of examples and colour photos that will make you want to quilt and quilt again. This book covers design, piecing and finishing. If you already have the first edition though, I am not sure it is worth buying the second, it is mainly the photos that have been moved around more than new content. If you do not have the first edition, then you can do no better than buy this book. It is simply superb for the contemporary quilter and those who want to learn more about the design process.
Yarnsandfabrics.co.uk
I really liked this book. The chapters are well considered and take the reader through the stages of design, stitch and completion in a sensible fashion. Jean's method of quilting reminds me so much of drawing. A great sense of colour and line translate her ideas into stitched and pieced compositions that convey a message to the senses. Although the book contains a lot of information it leads the reader lightly through the stages of inspiration and design to the nuts and bolts of construction. A final section with ideas for finishing techniques gives suggestions that all textile artists would find useful. In this context, the sections on abstraction and elements of design were particularly welcome. This is a book to keep handy. I have a feeling that I am going to be dipping into it rather a lot.
Workshop on the web
Although primarily intended for quilters, the first section of this book is about stepping out of the box to look at design, using colour, line, scale, shape, harmony, pattern and texture as well as discussing the principles of design. These skills are easily transferable and essential for any weaver, especially tapestry weavers. The section on colour is particularly interesting, as Jean talks at length about 'pushing a palette' by taking the intended colour, making it lighter, brighter, duller and darker, and goes on to consider monochromatic, analogus and complementary colours, as well as accented neutral colours. She continues by discussing value and contrast, intensity, temperature, seasons, personality of colours and palettes that relate to places and things. The book is very well written with clear precise text and beautiful photographs. For anyone thinking about design, colour and texture weaving, I can throughly recommend this book, as it will certainly open up your eyes and make you look at your surroundings in a completely different light. The second part of this book is Tools & Techniques used in quilting, so less relevant to weavers.
Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers
What did I find inside this gorgeous cover? So much inspiration but also the tools to create new works myself. The subject is broken down into manageable chapters covering such topics as Inspiration for Quilt Design, Launching the Design Process, Nuts and Bolts of Quilt Design, The Design Process and the all important Tools and Techniques. You learn a lot about the quilts in this book which I love. I think that it is by knowing how someone created something that you are able to start your own journey taking the piece or the artist as inspiration. This is a book you could flick through but I am actually reading it from front and back because the content really speaks to me. It has already sparked a lot of ideas and has bought home to me the value of journaling and sketchbooks. Both the natural and man world world are referenced in the book and from both the use of line is discussed. Breaking down the whole into its constituent pieces and sometimes finishing up with a piece that doesn't resemble the original inspiration at all but you can see how it has been influenced. Read the full review here.
Abigail Sheridan de Graaff
Cut & Alter
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